Avgolemono Soup (Σούπα αυγολέμονο)
Overview
Avgolemono is the Greek name for a sauce of whisked eggs and lemon juice, and the soup built on it is one of Greece's great comfort foods. Rice or orzo is cooked in a good chicken broth, then the egg and lemon mixture is tempered with hot stock and stirred back in off the heat. The eggs thicken the broth into a silky, pale-yellow soup with a bright, tangy flavour, without any cream or flour. The tricky part is avoiding curdling, so the pot must never boil once the eggs are in. Shredded chicken is often added to make it a full meal. Similar egg-lemon soups exist across the eastern Mediterranean, including in Turkish and Sephardic Jewish cooking.
History
Egg-and-lemon sauces have a long history around the Mediterranean. Avgolemono is often connected with the Sephardic Jewish communities who settled in the Ottoman Empire, including Greece, after leaving Spain, and who used a similar egg-lemon sauce called agristada. Over time avgolemono became a fixture of Greek cooking, used both as a sauce for meat and vegetables and as the base of this soup. The chicken and rice soup is a classic family dish, and the same egg-lemon finish thickens magiritsa, the soup traditionally eaten after the Easter midnight service.
Main ingredients
Chicken broth, rice, eggs, lemon juice, chicken. The soup is built on chicken broth and is usually served hot. Diet: contains meat; usually gluten-free.
Explore: Chicken soups · Rice soups · Egg soups · More soups from Greece
Recipe
Method
- 118 min
Simmer the rice in the stock for about 18 minutes until tender.
- 2
Whisk the eggs until frothy, then whisk in the lemon juice.
- 3
Slowly whisk two ladles of hot stock into the eggs to temper them.
- 4
Take the pot off the heat and stir the egg mixture back in; warm very gently without boiling until slightly thick.
- 5
Add the chicken, season and serve with pepper and herbs.
- ✓
Serve. About 50 min from start to bowl.
Pictures
Sources
Description, history and recipe written by SoupWiki and checked against the sources above. Calories and times are rough estimates.
